Confessions Of A Washed Up Music Snob part V

OK, I promise this is the last installment of this piece. With any luck we’ll get our own Joe Day to weigh in on this “Confessions” rant too. Stay tuned. In the meantime, if you happened to miss the previous instalments of this series, check out the “Confessions of a.” category on the sidebar..

V.) How Something as Uncool as Playing Christian Music Helped a Snob See the Light

In my early twenties I’d vowed to myself I would never sell out for the sake of a solid paycheck. Of course I’ve never believed I was going to make piles of money being a rock star. Most of my music has existed under the radar and never quite lent itself to radio friendliness anyway. But in my mind, it was better to live in a crappy house with a bunch of directionless bachelors and barely scrape by financially for the sake of making music with integrity. This is all good in theory but doesn’t play out too well in practice.

I was living simply at the time but it’s always a good idea to at least have an address and a telephone. But these expenses weren’t always affordable within my budget. So go ahead and call me a sellout but ramen noodles three meals a day, stacks of shutoff notices and annoying roommates gets old after a while. Especially when you reach the midpoint of your twenties. Throw a nice girl into the mix who’s unafraid of taking a risk on the abovementioned loser and everything changes. So do the math. Unmarried gals usually prefer their prospective mate be employed and as we all know, it’s not good for a man to be alone.

During this life stage I’d gotten involved with Mars Hill and my music endeavors were winding down. I’d met that great girl-now my lovely wife-and rock and roll wasn’t so conducive to family life. I’d definitely traded up but I was bitter. I felt that I’d honored God with what I was doing but since my band wasn’t particularly evangelical I hadn’t felt much support from Christian friends. Now I was in a church that “got it” but wasn’t able to enjoy their support since I wasn’t out there playing anymore.

So there I was once again in need of repentance. The real problem though was that I’d partially bought into the lie I’d vowed to never believe in-that the existence of a large, commercially viable audience and a paycheck gives music and its performer’s value. But I knew better than to think that monetary pay-off equaled legitimacy. It was all right under my nose: the music I was playing at Mars Hill was way more fulfilling than a paycheck or peer approval (truths that confounded journalist Ann Powers from Blender Magazine who featured Mars Hill worship in an article.[i])

Further, my conversation with Mr. Carducci had opened my eyes. For better or worse we Americans have professionalized music. In our culture, music is only something that highly trained professionals or bratty suburban kids with cool clothes and daddy issues do. And if you don’t fit into either of those categories, you’re a passive-participant consumer with a CD collection which merely serves as an accessory to your driving experience. 

We may not ever go back to front porch family hoedowns or singing work songs to each other as we toil. But the enjoyment of music can-and should-be a part of the fabric of our lives beyond consumerism-cool. The beauty of playing in a Mars Hill worship band is that we are able to transcend the trappings of the hierarchies of culture while still playing relevant music. If the Lord is to bless us with a church that leaves a lasting legacy, who knows, some of these songs may even graduate to high culture.

So as we ponder these issues why would Christians ever settle for nebulous, vanilla, lowest common denominator ready-made Wal-Mart-esque Christian experiences? The reason that we ought to put such a high premium on excellence in creativity is that we are made in the image and likeness of our creator. One of the great privileges of being an image bearer is to co-create-to think God’s thoughts after Him.

Fortunately for those of us involved in the Mars Hill Music and Production Department, we are blessed to lead a congregation that is willing to strive with us as we learn to write better. And to the credit of the larger Mars Hill community, the creative folks have been given a tremendous amount of grace. We bump around in the dark, scrap failed experiments, sometimes we even alienate people as they try and grasp our vision of contextualization. And the beauty of that is everyone lays claim to the ownership of those songs based on what God is specifically doing among us. Frankly, I don’t think
Nashville can package that.  But at the same time we stay rooted in a sense of history and make it a point to play the old standby hymns from time to time too. It’s not like we’re so full of our own vision that we don’t tap into our rich Christian songbook heritage.

So my hope is that I’ve communicated the following things: Worship leaders should be encouraged to do the hard work of thinking through the issues of contextualization for the building up of your community. Don’t sell your congregation short by giving them pre-packaged music. Give yourself permission to take a chance and write something that corresponds to what your local community is really going through. Play in a style that will authentically communicate to them. Be prepared to be patient with those you’re playing with as they catch onto your vision. Get rid of the idea that you need to hide in a corner when you play so that God get’s all the credit. You are called to lead your congregation and they won’t feel free in worship until you get over yourself and loosen up. You have an opportunity to make music that may very well last beyond the fickle demands of a consumeristic culture. It’s ok if you don’t make a paycheck in a cool rock band to be a legitimate musician. And lastly-and please don’t forget this-if you are a worship leader, you are an ambassador for Christ and you are leading others in song to our great God and King. 

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i.)  Plowing in Hope by David Bruch Hegeman published by Cannon Press 1999

ii.)  Rock and the Pop Narcotic by Joe Carducci published by 2-16-61; revised edition 1995 (a new edition is available but may not be in print much longer. Original copies go for as much as $100!) Carducci was a behind the scenes type that worked at seminal LA area and underground  punk rock label called SST in the 80s. Aside from promoting some of the most influential punk and hardcore bands of all time (Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Husker Du, The Meat Puppets, The Minutemen et al) Narcotic is one of the best, most comprehensive rock criticism / music biz books of all time that makes for great, funny, auto-didactic sociology. 

iii.) The article The Emo Driven Life appeared in the December ‘05 issue of Blender Magazine and was written by Los Angeles Times Chief pop-music critic Ann Powers